Another part are the works themselves. Literature can only
be judged by reading it, and certainly it cannot be characterized in a few
pages. But a man ignorant of Greek and anxious to estimate its value might form
some idea by inquiring the opinions of qualified judges. He would find them
unanimous: I suppose it is true that no man of eminence qualified to speak has
ever spoken of Greek literature in any tone but one. The first testimony is
that of the Romans. It is borne by their literature, starting in translations
from Greek, adopting one after another of their genres, permeated
through and through (and most of all in the greatest writers) by imitations,
reminiscences, influences of Greek, confessing and glorying in the debt. 'In
learning,' says Cicero, 'and in every branch of literature, the Greeks are our
masters.'[101] A Roman boy should begin his studies with Greek, Quintilian
thought, 'because Latin learning is derived from Greek.'[102] The same note is
repeated in the literature of the Renaissance, and re-echoed by the most
various voices of our own century.

[101] Tusc. 1. 1. 2.[102] Inst. Or. I. 1. 12.

'Though one of the Greek tragedians may seem rather
greater and more complete than another, their work as a whole has a single
pervading quality. It is marked by grandeur, excellence, sanity, complete
humanity, a high philosophy of life, a lofty way of thinking, a powerful
intuition (Anschauung). We find these qualities in their surviving lyric and
epic poetry as well as in their drama: we find them in their philosophers,
orators, and historians and, to an equally high degree, in their surviving
sculpture.'[103]

[103] Goethe, Gespräche, 3. 387.

'Beside the great Attic poets, like Aeschylus and
Sophocles, I am absolutely nothing.'[104]

[104] Ibid., 3. 443.

'He spoke with great animation of the advantage of
classical study, Greek especially. "Where," he said, "would one
look for a greater orator than Demosthenes; or finer dramatic poetry, next to
Shakspere, than that of Aeschylus or Sophocles, not to speak of
Euripides." Herodotus he thought "the most interesting and
instructive book, next to the Bible, which had ever been written".'[105]